Sociological approach
The article shows that desert areas are areas that are far from town, specifically areas where accessibility to the supermarkets is a challenge. People in desert areas do not have access to fresh food because they tend to shop more so that it can last for a long time; hence, some becoming bad. Price is another challenge that affects people in desert areas; hence; they cannot shop fresh food from the supermarkets. Functionalism is a sociological theory that seeks to explain how society is related to the biological and social needs of the individual. The functional theory is related to the article in that it explains how institution and transport systems affect how the people meet their needs in society.
Two-pronged approach method was used in the article to find out how the price and location of people in society affect their access to fresh food. The two-pronged approach seeks information from various sources; analyze it to conclude. Therefore, a two-pronged approach is advantageous because the information needed is got from various sources; hence, a lot of data is collected, and many people in the society are involved in the process hence, it is a reliable source. However, the two-prong approach has a disadvantage in that only a few people are surveyed and do not collect data and suggestion from other people; hence, limited data is collected. It is an unreliable approach; hence alternative sources such as interviews and surveys should be applied if data is to be collected.
The alternative research method that was used in the article was the use of interviews. People were interviewed, and the interviewees gave the researchers reasons as to why they did not have direct access to fresh food of which some of the reasons were high prices of the food, inaccessibility of the location contributed by inadequate time to do the shopping. The interview method is less costly and saves on time that the two-pronged method, which is a time-consuming and expensive method. Interview method limits the access to enough information because a few people are interviewed to represent a whole; hence, very unreliable.
A research gap that should be carried out to sort out the problem in the article is how the society should build up more structures such as supermarkets especially in the desert areas so that people have equal access to the services. The researcher should also provide alternatives to access to fresh food like building up more stores and supermarkets in desert areas to serve the people located there so that they would not have access to town services. In conclusion, society should ensure that all the public and essential institutions should be decentralized for easy access to the services.